Monday, 26 January 2015

Never Compare - Monday Motivation 26/01/2015

For some reason, I always thought it referred to
relationships, love stories. The saying brought to mind images of princesses
and princes and perfect love story endings. It reminded me to not compare my
grandparents’ 53 year marriage to the beginning of my relationship. While that
is an important reminder in itself, that every story ha a different path to follow, it
was only recently that I realized I had analysed the saying all wrong.

I have been spending a lot of time lately thinking about my
life, my vision, my dreams, and it was during these musings that the saying ‘Never
compare your chapter one with somebody else’s chapter 20’ received new meaning
for me.

Have you thought of the people you admire in your career, in
your hobbies, in your everyday life? The people who inspire and motivate
you? The people you aspire to be? The ones
who are at the top of their game?
Looking at the people who are doing what I want to do lead me to think
about where they started. The blogs that I follow which now have thousands of
readers, must have started out with only a few loyal readers. The Facebook
pages I interact with regularly, must have had only a few ‘likes’ when they
began. The motivational books that I've read started as dusty manuscripts.

The difference between those people, and me, is merely time.
With perseverance and hard work, I could achieve what they have mastered. If I
fill out the blank pages in the novel of my life, eventually my chapter 20 will
look like their chapter 20. The difference doesn't lie in how our stories start, it lies in the time and effort that we put into them to get to where we want to be.

So, don't focus on the people who already have achieved everything you want to achieve. Everyone's story has a different path to follow. Concentrate on your own journey, plan how to work yourself to the top, but never compare your beginning to someone else's ending.